1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to prompting systems and, more particularly, to an improved method for navigating through a prompting system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Telephone-based prompting systems are in increasing use both to provide an interface to voicemail systems and to provide an interface for interactive voice response systems, such as airline reservations, bank customer account lines, and other institutional lines such as for government, utilities, credit card companies and the like. In such systems, users are presented with hierarchical levels of prompts which are navigated by pressing buttons on the telephone keypads. The resulting DTMF (dual tone multifrequency) signals are received by the prompting system and used to access a different level in the hierarchy or to access a specified function.
Frequently, such prompting systems cause user frustration in that they provide only a predetermined set of prompts in a predetermined order.
The user who knows his way through the set of prompts to reach a known destination must nevertheless be presented with a voice message identifying each prompt state. While sequential overrides are available, the user must still key in an entry for each state.
Certain known telephone prompting systems permit a user to select a function which abbreviates the prompts. Thus, for example, rather than messages such as xe2x80x9cFor information concerning flight arrivals and departures, please press 1 nowxe2x80x9d, the user might be presented with the message xe2x80x9cArrivals and departures, press 1.xe2x80x9d Such systems still, however, require the user to navigate through each of the prompts prior to reaching a desired function. Similarly, other systems allow the user to skip from one hierarchical level to another hierarchical level, but only upon being provided with a separate prompt.
Non-institutional dynamic prompting systems (i.e., those not already xe2x80x9cfixedxe2x80x9d), such as those for in-house voice mail systems, similarly suffer from inefficiencies in storage and retrieval. More particularly, users of such systems who wish to save messages have no way of organizing the stored messages when they use a displayless interface, such as a telephone. Such users have only the option of saving or not saving the messages. The messages then are saved in a linear queue. Frequently, such messages are saved in forward or reverse chronological order, without any further added information. If any of the saved messages is to be retrieved, the user must listen to each prompt for each message or for its header. The user is thus unable to screen his stored message for a desired one in particular.
While the use of a graphical user interface (GUI), such as those available in computer-telephony interface (CTI) systems, provides an ability to organize messages, such GUIs often are not available if users wish to access messages remotely.
What is needed, therefore, is an improved method for navigating among hierarchical levels and across hierarchical levels in a telephone prompting system. There is particularly a need for a prompting system in which a user can more rapidly navigate to a desired function. There is a further need for an improved method of organizing voicemail or multimedia messages from a displayless interface. There is particularly a need for a prompting or messaging system which permits on-the-fly voice labeling and message organization.
These and other drawbacks of the prior art are overcome in large part by a system and method according to the present invention. According to one embodiment of the present invention, a prompting system is provided wherein a particular user may identify himself to the system and thereafter preprogram one or more paths that lead directly to a desired function within the hierarchical menu prompting system. The next time the user needs to access the system, the user can navigate directly to the desired function by pressing a predetermined key or sequence of keys on his or her Touch-Tone dial, or by speaking a predetermined word or sequence of words. Alternatively, the prompting system may present as an option a direct path to the desired function. A yet further embodiment of the present invention permits the user to navigate from one of a specified hierarchical levels to another of a specified hierarchical levels, for example, by specifying the hierarchical level to which the user wants to reach or by specifying a number of levels back through which the user wishes to return.
A multimedia messaging system according to another embodiment of the invention permits a caller to add a subject line to a message. The voicemail system can then recognize the subject and play only messages identified by the subject line. A further aspect of this embodiment is an automatic subject line or topic search system. For example, the voicemail system may be preprogrammed to record the first 10 or 15 seconds of a recorded message and automatically use these words as the subject line. The recorded subject line for unplayed messages may then be searched as desired. Alternatively, the entire message may be converted to searchable text. If the user speaks a word, the system searches received messages for those containing the text.
A voicemail system according to another aspect of the present invention allows a user to remotely organize stored messages in hierarchical folders from a displayless interface. According to this aspect of the invention, once the user has retrieved and played his messages, the voicemail system permits the user to add a folder name or subject line, for example changing the subject line left by the caller, and thereafter store the message according to a user-defined hierarchy. A still further aspect of the invention allows the user to create a macro to send or forward messages or create distribution lists or group lists on the fly.